


To Acknowledge Defeat

by doomcanary



Series: Conquest [6]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Dark, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-16 08:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1338595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomcanary/pseuds/doomcanary





	To Acknowledge Defeat

“How may I serve you, sire?”

Arthur pauses in his perusal of a document. Afternoon light pours across the table, littered with leather folders and scrolls. A quill perches precariously in an inkwell at Arthur's right hand. At the far end the debris of his last meal are waiting to be cleared.

“Something to drink,” he says. “Mulberry tea, for preference.”

Merlin clears the plates, and brings Arthur a pot of wine-coloured tisane.

“Thankyou, Merlin,” says Arthur absently. “That will be all.”

“Sire?”

Arhur glances up, and meets Merlin's eyes. There's nothing concealed in that look; just sadness, honesty, and a kind of regret.

“That's all, Merlin,” he says.

Leaving the room feels like leaving him behind.

 

He spends the afternoon sweeping and tidying in Gaius's workshop, before he has to attend Arthur for dinner. He still feels guilty over the juniper water; he's never seen Gaius look like that, so crumpled and defeated.

“Merlin?” says Gaius. “Are you feeling all right?”

“I just -” Merlin spreads his hands. “I haven't got anything to do.”

“Doesn't Arthur need you?”

“He's doing paperwork.”

“I'd have thought you'd be down by the river, idling with the other boys.”

So would Merlin, really. He doesn't want that somehow.

“And,” he says awkwardly, “I'm sorry, I suppose.”

“Sorry?” saus Gaius. “For what?”

“Arthur's stupid – that potion, the one you made me -”

Gaius holds up a hand. “Enough, Merlin. No need to rake over bad memories again.”

Merlin's lips awkwardly frame the question before he can bring himself to ask it. “What – what was it for? In the Purge?”

Gaius pauses, and Merlin sees the moment when he decides to speak.

“It never worked,” he says. “But the soldiers wanted it anyway. To paint on their armour, as a charm to protect them from the sorcerers they had to arrest. I'd send them out, and see them carried home dead the same day.”

His face is lined with sorrow older than Merlin is as he turns away, and goes to put the tea-kettle on the fire. Merlin sets down his broom and comes to the fireside too. They drink tea in silence; sage for wisdom, and rosemary for regret. Not rue; rue is a herb to plant against witches.

 

Merlin dresses Arthur with careful attention; more, perhaps, than he has ever used before. He's intensely aware of the force of the Prince's presence, the distance that exists between his tall form and the rest of the world. He can touch velvet and linen, lace up sleeves and brush away stray hairs, but somehow now, he cannot quite touch the man. He collects Arthur's gloves from the cupboard; as he turns with them, just for a moment Arthur's eyes are fixed on his hands with a dark, possessive gleam.

Merlin hesitates, arrested by it; Arthur sobers himself abruptly. His face clears. He shakes his head, refusing the gloves.

“You've done an excellent job, Merlin,” he says kindly, glancing down at his clothes. “I won't require you in the morning. Enjoy your night.”

Merlin watches the Crown Prince leave for another formal meal, his back straight and his fair hair glossy with health. Arthur will spend his evening under the eye of the King, and the closest of the court; Merlin is not required. He is truly just a servant now.

 

In the full light of midmorning, Merlin comes to Arthur anyway, unasked. His chamber door is open again; Merlin pauses in the doorway, a cautious hand resting on the stone. Arthur, brooding in the window embrasure as he often does, glances up; he seems to know Merlin's there, as if there really is some connection between them.

Hesitantly, Merlin comes in. Arthur steps away from the window, watching Merlin as if he's trying to read omens in his face. Perhaps he is. They come towards each other like the compass finding north, a progress full of pauses and changes; they're skittish, and yet drawn back. The space of air between them when they meet is a no man's land. Tentatively, Merlin raises a hand. Arthur's meets it; their fingers touch, and then Arthur's ghost down his and brush against his bruises. Merlin closes his eyes, pressing his lips into a line; Arthur lays his hand, very lightly, on Merlin's wrist.

“The day I came of age,” says Arthur softly, “I went to the dragon, and asked it why my mother died. For once in its life, it spoke the truth. I know what I am, how I came to this world.”

Merlin is still. His hand drops slowly back to his side.

“I also know that the dragon has been speaking to you since you arrived in Camelot. I know,” he says, “because that was the last day it spoke to me.”

Merlin's eyes widen. Arthur nods. “I knew about you, Merlin. Long before you came here.”

“Arthur,” says Merlin softly.

“When you arrived, the dragon just stopped. Silence. I knew you were here, but I didn't know your face, not until I dreamed. The night I first touched you – I dreamed the dragon was telling me the future, and I woke to find it was true.”

Even the seeping sadness that Arthur's distance brought, even the raw honesty of his words can't quite overwrite the anger Merlin still feels.

“What the fuck,” he says suddenly, “stopped you just telling me this? You starved me, Arthur.”

Arthur raises his head and gives Merlin a long slow look, his expression indecipherably sad. He pins Merlin's arms at his sides and kisses him.  
Merlin fights; he struggles against Arthur's strength, but he was a fraction too late in understanding Arthur's intent and his strength is not a match for Arthur's. He shifts the prince sideways, twists an arm half free, but Arthur captures it again. Furious, Merlin writhes, and it's then that Arthur licks along his lower lip, and Merlin bucks and returns the kiss.

It's Arthur who breaks away, and he gives Merlin a look that cuts through skin and bone and goes right down to his soul.

“The fact that I know you,” he says. “You lie to yourself.”

“It's not a bad thing to keep yourself cheerful.”

Arthur gives a pained smile. “If only that was all you do.”

There's a pause.

“You starved me,” says Merlin. He doesn't pull away.

“Your village would have gone without food longer than that in the hard winters.” It's the truth, spoken with certainty. Merlin's angry reply dies on his lips.

“Not... not for the kids,” he says. “The grownups went without for their sake.”

Except, in his mother's eyes he's a man now; if he were to go back to Ealdor this winter, he'd go without too. He looks down and corrects himself. “They went without for our sake.”

Arthur's hands are so warm where they're wrapped around his arms. He meets Merlin's eyes, holds them; there's something magnetic about him, something that calls you to respect him and listen. The blood of kings.

“This,” he says, “is not a game for children. This is Camelot. I will be Camelot's king. There is no room for lies, or risks, or petty delusions. You, of all people, cannot choose not to protect yourself. The things the dragon showed me, Merlin -”

Merlin interrupts him angrily.

“If there's no room for lies, tell me the truth about why you wanted to fuck with my head,” he says.

“I didn't want to, Merlin -”

“Yes you did. You wanted it. You didn't do this for the precious kingdom. That's bullshit.”

“It's not. You didn't see them. See you.”

“Don't," says Merlin, "lie to me.”

Arthur lets him go, but doesn't back away. They're chest to chest.

“All right,” says Arthur, and as he says it something Merlin can't name comes into his eyes, something that makes him feel he shouldn't be seeing it at all. “There is no reason. I did it because I look into your eyes, and I want to break you. I want to twist you out to the far edge of pain, and make you forget that you're anything but _mine_. I want you beneath my heel, I want you in my hand. I want you to you hate yourself for wanting the things that only I can give, I want you to come to me and _beg_ because you know it will hurt, and yet you cannot get away from me. You are part of my kingdom. And you will learn.”

 

Arthur's tide of words runs dry. He's expecting disgust, expecting Merlin to walk away again. A bridge too far. What he sees is Merlin transfixed, his eyes dark.

“You want me to beg?” Merlin says, his voice dark with - what? Desire, and something else. Anger, perhaps.

Arthur is not, cannot be, backward in such matters as this. And there is not a bone in his body that wants to be.

He takes one decisive step back. A long pause unspools between them; he holds Merlin's eyes, drawing him along it too. Banked fire rises in him, a slow suffusing burn.

“You have a choice, Merlin,” he says. “You may do as I say, or you may leave.”

 

“You may do as I say, or you may leave.” Arthur is a statue of a king; richly painted, glorious, hard as stone.

Merlin steps forward into the space Arthur left. He drops his head, and smiles at Arthur; it's not a smile of joy or affection at all. It's threatening, sharp-edged.

“No,” he says. “No, I will not serve you, Prince Arse. I will not bow to your arrogance, I won't live as your lapdog, and I will never, never beg.”

Theirs is a bond of conquest, bloody and harsh; it was formed in strife, and it will be strengthened in it every day of their lives. Arthur steps close to him, intensely present; Merlin's heart beats faster. Every nerve wakes. His body drinks Arthur in, even as he tenses for the fray. Arthur's lips are close enough to kiss; he raises a hand, and closes it on Merlin's throat. Lightly, so lightly; it sends a tingling shock through him.

“Won't you,” Arthur says. “We shall see.”

There are many forms of conquest, from the petty to the grand. But there is one which carries all others before it; one victory, one loss, greater than any war can ever be. Merlin lets his head fall back; Arthur's fingers tighten on his neck, restraining him. His hands go to Arthur's hips and pull them close. Arthur's touch at his throat is light as a feather, is choking, drowning as water rams itself into your mouth; is the focus of his soul.

Arthur will be king, and even he is powerless against love. In a world like that, what chance does his servant have? Better by far to acknowledge his defeat; better by far to give in to destiny.

Merlin opens his eyes, and they're golden-bright. He pours himself into that single point of touch, slowly opening the floodgates to the whole vast current of the magic at his command. And he feels the faintest tremor in Arthur's hand.

The meaning of destiny is a very slippery thing.


End file.
